I’ve always heard people voice their plan of action for when they may possibly be in a life-threatening situation, saying what they’ll do step by step.
I must say, I might also be one of the guilty ones, saying “Oh, I’ll just do this and this and this when something happens.”
Well, shockingly enough, it doesn’t happen that way, not in my experience.
Recently, I had a very strange weekend, and things that normally don’t happen to me, happened in the space of two days.
The first was a major car accident unfolding right in front of my eyes in the middle of nowhere.
Being in this career, I see accidents on a frequent basis, but it’s an entire different story when you witness it as it happens.
We immediately stopped and got out of the car, and my other half was quick on his feet and jumped to action.
I was just standing there, flabbergasted and completely clueless.
I always thought I’d know what to do and know whom to call, and while I really do, I just hit a complete blank.
Rushing to the occupants of the vehicles seemed to be the first priority and that’s what I did.
One person died that night and I couldn’t help but wander if there was anything I could have done.
Point is, when faced with fear and shock, big talk and planned bravery get you nowhere if you can’t think quick and improvise.
The other thing, which happened two nights later, was when I least expected it.
Here we were, relaxing under a grass-roofed lapa with a nice fire heating us up…
And then there were flames.
Lots and lots of huge, crackling flames.
And again, I started panicking and froze, not being able to think of a plan of action.
Only after the men tried to douse the flames with a hosepipe (which was broken) did I come to the realisation that there is a swimming pool not 10m away from me.
By this time, the whole roof was on fire and the men couldn’t get the water pumping from the tank on the property.
So after standing around like an idiot with my hands on my head for another few seconds, the thought came to locate a bucket.
And I did.
Long story short, the roof is no more, but nothing else was damaged.
At the end of the day, you really don’t know how you will act and react when an emergency is at hand.
Hopefully, my reflex trigger is warmed up.
